Travel Tip: Art and Archaeology in FranceJean-Baptiste Carpeaux

Jean-Baptiste CarpeauxFRANCEPARIS • Musée d’Orsay • Ongoing

French sculptor and painter, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux came from an unusual background: his father was a bricklayer and his mother a lacemaker in Valenciennes. He was to pursue an exceptional career closely related to the "imperial party" of the reign of Napoleon III. Although he set off on a dazzling path within the arts, he was also seen to incarnate the romantic idea of the "cursed artist". He died aged 48, and his fifteen-year career was marked by great violence and passion, as he tirelessly strove to capture the subjects of his choosing or which were commissioned (the Pavillon de Flore of the Louvre, La Dance for the Garnier Opera House). This retrospective is the first since 1975 to be dedicated to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, sculptor, painter and designer, and the exhibition explores the work of this major figure of late nineteenth century French sculpture, whose work, according to Alexandre Dumas, was "more alive than the living."